Their View: Will Las Cruces become an inconsequential city?

We continue to hear that creating the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument will result in increased tourism for Las Cruces and Doña Ana County, become an economic driver by creating many jobs and securing access to these areas for the future. All I can say is show me.

Doña Ana County covers 2.4 million acres. This proposed national monument is 600,000 acres, or 25 percent of all the land in the county. This will result in a loss of land for future economic development and adversely impact county property tax revenue. Just look at Las Vegas, N.M., once the largest city west of Kansas City. When the economic drivers (timber, mining, cattle) declined, so did the city. Now it is just a footnote in history and a minor player in New Mexico.

The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance has tried for years to lock up large tracts of land in Doña Ana County. Voters don't have, and have not had, fair representation on the monument/wilderness issue. This environmental group thinks they can run roughshod over the public because they successfully elected their former board members and current employees to local offices.

Who are these individuals who are all linked to, or are paid staffs of, the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance? NM State Senator Bill Soules' brother is on their Board; NM State Representative Jeff Steinborn and Las Cruces City Counselor Nathan Small are their paid community organizers, and U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich is co-founder and past board chair.

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Many recent press releases commended the recent national monument created in the northern part of the state. These articles praise the wisdom of "protecting the environment" and creating jobs for the future. First, preventing government land from being released for economic development will result in a stagnant local economy. In 2005, Senator Domenici tried to address this when he introduced a wilderness bill that called for the protection of the Organs and county wilderness study areas. His bill also called for the release of some BLM lands close to our city limits to allowing for future economic development to help maintain a healthy local economy.

The New Mexico Wilderness Alliance fought the Domenici bill and eventually introduced a massive monument bill, which calls for three times the amount of land to be protected and it kills all BLM land releases. Second, the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance promoting that the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Monument will become a Carlsbad Caverns type tourist attraction is simply preposterous and misleading to the public. There are no similar natural structures that will draw in all these mythical eco-tourists.

Carlsbad Caverns National Monument costs approximately $6 million per year to operate and brings in over 400,000 visitors. These visitors produce approximately $1.6 million in revenues. Even this magnificent monument faces an annual operating deficit of $4.4 million. The $5.5 million in annual employee salaries and park operations do not allow for much needed repairs to its failing infrastructure. Can you imagine 400,000 people a year trampling through our Organ Mountains? A recent Albuquerque Journal article reported that Carlsbad Caverns has had to increase its entrance fees by nearly 65 percent, as it can no longer continue to subsidize the monument losses with taxpayer money.

There is no guarantee that converting 25 percent of Doña Ana County into a national monument will encourage enough visitors to offset its economic impacts and its operating costs. Creating this monument will diminish economic development, jobs, ranching and drive the cost of the last remaining lands for development up. The cost of a home in Las Cruses averages $77 per square foot while in Santa Fe it is $230 per square foot. Rising land costs on lower and middle class residents, from a shortage of land, is exactly what happened in Santa Fe and now in Taos.

Before we "monumentize" one out of four acres in the county, we need to know the real cost to the taxpayer and the economic loss from less land. We need to get this right. If we don't, we could make one of the poorest counties in the nation worse. All this could lead to higher taxes to offset the loss in tax revenues. Our federal government just raised ticket prices 65 percent at Carlsbad Caverns to offset their losses. So, what makes you think they are going to spend millions here to create a new monument? We must identify all the economic impacts to our community or I'm afraid we will soon become another inconsequential city in New Mexico.

Jim Harbison is a retired infantry officer, combat veteran and recipient of both Silver and Bronze stars for valor. He is a member of various Masonic organizations, Veterans Advisory Board and both state and county Republican Party Central Committees.

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